Nowadays, the world is all about mechanization. No matter where you turn there is somebody trying to come up with how to make robots to do production in a way that a person no longer has to do it. We as humans are stuck on having things done for us. No matter what it is, we would like to have designs that would automate it for us. In this day and age there are already a lot of things that require very little of us to get done.

The same is true of commercial enterprises the world over. To businesses there is the matter of making more money and they are always on the look out for ways to cut the costs to make the products they offer. This is where factory automation comes into play. A industrial plant that relies heavily on automation has less in the way of labor costs, making it less costly for the business to produce products thereby increasing profits in many ways.

There is some debate on whether or not an automated factory is a benefical idea. Automation relies on machines, like robots to perform tasks that were once performed by humans. One of the problems is the problem that these robots and machines cost large capital investments for the most part, which means a very high up front investment for the investor. Now they could, in theory, win back the investment in only a few years by not having to pay an employee to do the job, but what if the job becomes unnecessary? This can mean that they invested a lot of money that was not needed.

In addition is the fact that robots do not have the ability to think or solve problems without assistance from outside parties, namely humans. Most observers would advise that robots only do the most mundane processes in a factory so they have no need to think. possibly so but what if something goes wrong with the process. Does the robot know to halt? Will it be able to solve the problem on its own? The answer to both of those questions is of course NO. The robot must be instructed what to do by a human and has no thought process of its own.

The other issue is that using factory automation takes jobs away from the people who require them. This is the largest concern in the automation debate as it is known today. This is possibly true and it could harm the economy because the more people that are out of jobs the worse the economy is. However these people may be trained for better jobs, that are more interesting and more human. Who wants to drill holes in the same pattern, in the same item every minute of every work day!

It is a helpful plan for all intents and purposes to fully automate factories. The debate about this rages on but it is doubtful that machines will ever replace us humans completely.